Mediumship Debunked.

Very revealing interview between Derren Brown and Richard Dawkins discussing if mediumship is fraudulent and explaining how various cold reading techniques actualy work:


And Derren in action performing cold reading to a crowd in New York who are under the impression he's a famous medium from England.

Its quite impressive how he uses the basic principles of psychology to make these people think hes communing with dead people.
He establishes at one point the name of a woman's deceased mother,her ex husband's name,that she collected hats and that she dreamed she died in an elevator.

Nice! Thank you!
Derren is a great man and his skills are beyond understanding
for most.

If you like this then you will love the whole TV special, Messiah!

Q: How would you describe the programme? Derren Brown: It's a personal journey for me, quite a dark journey. It's a documentary styled show where I go to America and meet some influential people behind certain belief-systems that people are encouraged to base their lives upon. Two targets are new-age beliefs and mainstream Christianity. Using my techniques and showmanship can I get these people who are responsible for the beliefs of hundreds of thousands of people, to endorse me as being the real thing? I approach these people under different pseudonyms, demonstrating to each of them an ability I have which is somehow proof to them of my abilities in that particular field. I allow them to decide how much they are going to endorse it and embrace it. If at any point they say to me this is some sort of trick I will confess and tell them.

www.derrenbrown.co.uk...

Derren Brown is amazing, a uniquely gifted individual.

I have no doubt theat a large proportion of mediums are charlatans and money sucking liars - however, I don't believe that you can tar them all with the same brush.

In a Melvin Bragg radio 4 interview, a number of neuro-surgeons were discussing the workings of the brain - they stated that they had studied the impulses in the aural cortex of both schizophrenics and mediums and had concluded that for all schizophrenics and some mediums - when they say that they hear voices - the aural cortex lights up like a christmas tree -and they had to conclude that they were actually hearing voices.

It has to be added that when they were asked to imagine a voice - similar results were witnessed.

Originally posted by atrofi
Nice! Thank you!
Derren is a great man and his skills are beyond understanding
for most.
If you like this then you will love the whole TV special, Messiah!
www.derrenbrown.co.uk...

Atrofi thanks for the reply
Thats a great link-I watched the programme and the scene where Derren is performing instant conversions is quite an eyeopener.

Should point out that Derren is just using well honed psychological manipulation techniques and not making any supernatural claims:

I suppose this all goes to show just how powerful the human brain realy is,particularly when it comes to something as ambivalent as religion.
Cheers Karl

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

I haven't any doubt there are those who do this. But that doesn't conclude that real mediums and psychics don't exist here somehwere.

Remote Viewing was said to be used by the government and supposedly still is. Apparently it would seem it hasn't been all that helpful. I suppose that's where the conspiracy and manipulation comes in again?

I've been to a couple of mediums before and it turned out one was working for the government. Awhile later I was visited by a well known criminal profiler who asked me several questions about crimes in the area as if I was the psychic. I felt as if I was being set up. A lot of weird crap was happening where I lived and it was right across from a police station.

I've seen her a few times on TV since then, but now she doesn't come up on a google search.



[edit on 4-1-2009 by aleon1018]